


Give you what you like.

by skinnylittlered



Category: Supernatural
Genre: Angst, Castiel's Loss of Grace, Destiel - Freeform, End of the World, Episode: s05e04 The End, Established Castiel/Dean Winchester, Established Relationship, Graceless Castiel, Heavy Angst, High Castiel, Human Castiel, M/M, Panic Attacks, Panicking Dean, Slash
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-07-02
Updated: 2015-07-02
Packaged: 2018-04-07 09:20:32
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,187
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4257936
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/skinnylittlered/pseuds/skinnylittlered
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Cas is how Dean copes.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Give you what you like.

More often than not nowadays, Dean finds that, whenever his eyelids come together for a lengthier while than that of the regular blink, the only images projected onto his lightless retina are those of a crumbling Detroit and Sam rejoicing at the sight of decaying body parts scattered all over the streets. The worst part of it all is not even the fact that his Sammy is gone, it’s that _he isn’t_. That sadistic son of a bitch, Lucifer, to whom he’s grown more intimately acquainted over the course of a much longer than imperatively necessary time spent in his disagreeable company (Dean supposes it is not only the angel’s extended residence in hell that’s made him so – Crowley has proved himself to be, after all, a much more pleasant antagonist to occasionally discuss business with – but his, plainly put, inbred assholery), would never pass the opportunity of inflicting any sort of perverse torment upon the last remaining Winchesters by doing his very best to protect the younger one’s flesh, keeping him alive, conscious witness to all the horrors his consent of becoming Satan’s little bitch unleashed. It makes Dean want to punch things. Lots of things.

 _All_ things.

Instead, to forget of his own anguish and general sorrow, Dean has taken to the otherwise unhealthy (from a standardised psychological standpoint, that is, but, then again, when has Dean’s life ever met the criteria of your average Joe’s course of existence?) custom of engineering the most complex of scenarios in which he takes his sweet time exacting vast amounts of the most depraving tortures on the _original_ fallen angel – he has happened upon a couple of more of that variety since then. He might as well put all those years – due to different timespans between the realms, despite them actually being only months, he insists on referring to his temporary dwelling in the pit in broader terms – of literal bone crushing pain spent in hell to good use; he’s sure, after all, that good ol’ Lu will appreciate Dean using the same tricks on him that his overexcited disciples used on himself, slowly shattering even the last remnant of humanity left in him. Douchebag’s got it coming – Dean’s got plenty of daddy issues himself, hell, much like those of a whorehouse, the affairs of hunters rely on at least one absent parental figure, but, at least to Dean’s knowledge, none of those of his brethren have attempted, you know, decimating the Earth.

It is when the breaths no longer enter his airways with ease that he suspects his train of thought has derailed somewhere in a darker-than-his-still-human-mind-can-take-without-glitching, otherwise Dean would’ve just lulled himself to whatever form of half slumber he’s been exercising lately that’s been deepening the dark circles under his eyes and the crevices between his ribs, that restless or not, continues to keep him relatively sane and half efficient in his daily routines. It’s because Dean has been seeing in shades only for some time now, which, come to think of it, is not that much of a change from days as far back as he can remember – neither he nor Sam have ever been poster children for a Martha Stewart childhood. The only difference between then and now is the fact that back then Dean could discern between _nuances_ , thing that, he’s come to the recent realisation, he seems unable to do anymore. Kudos to his body for flipping out on his sorry ass just as the last of his sanity seems to flicker away.

And for Cas.

For what must be the, he doesn’t even know anymore, but approximates it to the number of _The Young and the Restless_ episodes, Dean is facing the front door of Castiel’s lodging, no traces of what used to be a disturbing sense of unrighteousness, of profoundly sacrilegious decadence, pooling deep within his stomach. It’s on nights like these when Dean is afraid of the dark.

Not bothering to knock on the door as he once would’ve, Dean barges in and stumbles across the messy floor, hissing and damning it all, the objects scattered on the frayed carpet and what once was holy, to hell, giggling like a madman upon grasping the reality of his current surroundings, the reality in which they already are in hell, the mess around him, the once-holy sleeping pitifully on the bed, and him. And the giggles turn into laughs, and he basks in laughter, insane as it may look, because nowadays he doesn’t laugh anymore, nobody does. He doesn’t mind his tone as he did at first, doesn’t care if it rouses Castiel from his sleep. He just allows himself to fall face first onto the ragged mattress – oftentimes even on Castiel – and waits for the slumbering man to shift awake, which the he eventually does, with a low groan and a good natured elbow in the ribs. Dean doesn’t even wince anymore, but still acknowledges the leftover angelic strength he possesses with a short grunt. Cas grunts back, a prolonged, low sound in apparent confirmation. They don’t make use of too many words these days, like they’d run out of them just as they did of the others: supplies, food, loved ones. Dean and Cas have come to the mutual understanding that they can’t lose anymore without their sanity going as well. And if the sanity goes, the words will become meaningless.

So, without saying anything, Dean curls into a ball, waiting for the warm hand to be laid reassuringly on his arm as it always does when they’re like this. It a hand that’s killed more innocents than it has saved, but that’s how it goes now, and none of them can beat themselves over it for too much – self-preservation is crucial, and this is how Dean copes.

Castiel has other methods managing his last remaining wits.

Cas snorts, fucks, smokes, and drinks. Hell, Cas has snorted, fucked, smoked, and drunk himself into a whole other personality and when he ran out of rations he just went out and made more, like he forgot he was no longer of the supernatural realm, and degrading at the same speed with the others. But Dean knows he hasn’t. Even when he can’t see straight, or, maybe, especially then, Castiel feels the humanity rotting his vessel like an invisible cancer, a cancer which he cannot cure anymore because, as far as he’s concerned, this world is devoid of any shard of grace there ever was. They’re all gone: the grace, his brothers, his Father.

But not hope. Hope was never lost, not even as he stared Lucifer, the devil in the flesh (and his brother’s nonetheless) in the eyes, in the middle of a broken street, filled with decaying body parts. Dean copes. Cas is how Dean copes.

They stay in silence, they fuck in silence, they silently sleep and, when the sun comes up, Dean just as silently leaves his lover naked on the soiled bed, thinking that mojo or not, cast in depravity or not, Castiel will always be of heaven, whether he returns there with wings or without them.

 

**Author's Note:**

> You thought I only did Tom Hiddleson, huh? *chuckles maniacally* 
> 
> To the Supernatural fandom, I truly hope I did the series justice (well, at this point I firmly believe only the series can do the series justice, really) and provided you with an enjoyable read. If not, if you’d find it in your hearts to give a poor author a few tips on immortalising the Supernatural quintessence in their writing, you are strongly encouraged to. 
> 
> To my lovely followers, I’m sooo, soooooooo sorry updates are taking so long, school’s still fucking me in the ass big time and it upsets me when I’m stressed and feel like I have to write. It makes writing feel like a chore and that is the last thing I want it to feel like. Some Tom Hiddleston love is in the works (and by that I mean a lot of it), it’s just that I haven’t got around to finishing it. 
> 
> Also, this is unedited. I apologise about that as well, but I just get so fucking excited when I’m done writing that I just can’t be bothered with re-reading anymore and directly upload. I’m a bad writer. Feel free to point out any mistakes you see.
> 
> Thank you for reading and thank you for sticking around *shoves muffins down your throat*.
> 
> P.S.: Title seems familiar because it’s the Avril Lavigne song. It was what set the mood for this fic.


End file.
